[Series] Final Fantasy

[Skinypupy]

Squeenix announced today that they’ll be releasing “pixel remaster” versions of the first six Final Fantasy games. It appears these will be faithful ports of the pre-PS1 games, intended to replace the horrible versions they’ve released previously. Yay, I guess.

Oddly, they’re only going to be on Steam and mobile. Not making these available for consoles (especially Switch) seems like a huge miss.

[Sudy]

I'm glad I'll have the option of paying for a hopefully quality port on PC, but I'm sad because I know I won't like the price.

[Baroquen]

I saw this announcement. I'm not sure I'd wait until a specific title I want to play is released. And certainly won't go back and replay any FF I beat. So while interesting, I don't think it makes any difference to me. I'll emulate, or deal with current versions.

Speaking of - earlier tonight I was continuing to work my way through the Steam/DS-port of FFIII and was enjoying it. I'm nearing the endgame and just blew through Eureka. Think I need to grind a bit before finishing the Crystal Tower and into the World of Darkness. But the Eureka bosses were fun. The end is relatively in sight (since I have no interest in the ??? dungeon or the Iron Giant, or any of that stuff). I did get the Ultimate Weapon and stole a gungir spear thing. That's enough side quests for me. With my school year ending, I should have time to finish this up in the next couple weeks. Fun.

[wonderpug]

Funny enough, I just started up Final Fantasy VI on my mini SNES thingie. It's already pixel perfect as far as I can tell (with the option to add scan lines!) so I'm not really sure what this new thing adds to the table.

[Baroquen]

So I finished FFIII tonight and it was near-disastrous, and thrilling.

I'm going to spoiler this, in case someone's worried about my spoiling a 30+ yr old game, plus the post got a little long in the telling...

Spoiler:

So the final stage in the game is an extended dungeon with no chance to save. Mini-bosses. Lots of running through multiple levels/screens fighting now-meaningless wandering/random mobs. Typical old school JRPG, I'd say. Probably took me an hour or more to get through all of the lead up to the final boss. But clearing the mini-bosses and trash mobs went well, and I felt good going into the final fight.

Well the big finale starts off going pretty well. I take out one of the two boss tentacles, and am wearing down the boss HPs. The boss crushes with her main AOE attack (Particle Beam) but she's not using it much. So far so good - I'm getting heals off every round and staying ahead of the damage.

Well because of some poor timing - the boss gets off an attack on my healer and follows up with her PB attack. This wipes out my healer and 1 of my three damage dealers. I have two melee fighters left and they're at half health... What to do? First I heal my two remaining characters up with 2 of my 20 elixirs (full heals). I want to try and rez my healer but the boss is now shooting off PB every turn and with her other two attacks - my two fighters are barely hanging on. I luck out after a few rounds of treading water, and raise my healer with a phoenix down, but as expected, the boss hits her PB attack and we're back to square one: dead healer and nearly-dead fighters. I have to keep healing both characters each round with the elixirs, which are quickly running out. Every once in awhile, the boss buffs herself, or an attack misses and I get an attack off. But things are not looking good.

I'm down to 4 elixirs... 2 rounds left... and I'm considering what I'm going to do differently the next time I have the patience to try this whole thing again. I maybe got another attack off, but eventually - I'm down to my last round of healing. When the round ends - both fighters are once again at 1/2 health and won't last another turn. But I'm out of options. So I reluctantly hope attack and hope to get REALLY lucky with the bosses moves this turn.

Lo and behold... the first attack my fighter makes... for about 6k of damage, on a boss that started with 120k HPs ... finally takes her down. I truly was down to my last chance, and it was enough to finish her off. Amazingly lucky. HUGE sigh of relief....

I can't recall the last time I had as exciting a RPG battle like that. MMOs and the like are mindless grinding these days. The story was pretty poor overall, with a few nice touches at the end. But the game mechanics at the end, while unforgiving, were fun.

Not sure if I'll play another old-school RPG (maybe FF VI? One of the Might and Magic games? Pick up Disgaea 6 in a couple weeks?) but it's satisfying to actually finish off a game (and not have to tackle that endgame again!).

Time for sleep.